On the Run Together

Chapter 16: Mr. Barton Goes to Washington

Clint and K decided to head east for their countrywide tour, so that they could stop at a few beaches, heading south and then back west to New Orleans. But that also meant that they were close enough that Clint asked if they could go see DC — because he wanted to see the King Tut Exhibit.

"I heard about it when we were at the archery tournament and all the kids wanted to go see it," he told her excitedly.

"You're not worried about the curse of the mummy or anything, are you?" she had to tease.

Clint shrugged and shook his head. "Nope. I got you!"

"Well, let's hope that's enough not to raise the wrath of the thirteen-year-old king or whatever he was."

Clint couldn't help but giggle at that. "I bet he's not even bigger'n Barney," he whispered.

"The pictures of the sarcophagus were beautiful," she said, nodding. "Yeah. That sounds like fun."

Clint beamed up at her. "Great!" he said, skipping off to the car to go climb in, already excitedly telling Sicem all about King Tut now that they were going.

So it was really no surprise that by the time they arrived, Clint was over the moon. K was redheaded this time, her hair pulled back in a long ponytail and a visor on that made her look like a lot of the other tourists coming to the area, which Clint thought was great, because they blended in well

"It's been ... oh, forever since I tried red hair, I'll have you know," K told him quietly. "I feel like Barney should have a picture."

"We can buy a picture at the museum, right?" Clint said. "Then he can see the cool museum stuff too!"

"Probably," she replied. "I'm sure we'll find somewhere."

Clint grinned at that, practically pulling on her hand the whole time as he dragged her toward the line. He wasn't the only excited kid, either — and K could see plenty of other little boys and girls dragging parents toward the King Tut exhibit. College and high school students were also crowding that way; it was a huge attraction.

When they did finally manage to make it to the exhibit, through all of the waiting in lines and everything else, Clint looked totally awed, getting as close as he was allowed to stare at everything he could see, mouthing out a little 'wow' every once in a while as he drank it in.

"Makes you wanna take up tomb raiding like Indiana Jones, doesn't it?" K said over his shoulder.

Clint nodded, his eyes wide. "Maybe I could do that," he said. "I could fight bad guys and put stuff in museums, right?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," she said. "But he was supposed to be an archaeologist. And that sounds like college. Guess we better get cracking on you, ."

Clint looked down for a moment and shuffled his feet. "I dunno... I'm still not very good at reading..." he said quietly. "That's a lot of school."

"You still have plenty of time to decide that," she said, jostling him lightly.

"Yeah, but I'm not very smart," Clint told her in a whisper. "So I dunno if I can."

"You can do anything you want to do."

Clint looked up at her with his nose scrunched up and then shook his head at her. "Okay, if you say so."

"I do," she said, nodding sharply. "If you want to do it, then I have no doubt you can."

"Even though I can't read real well?" he asked, gesturing to the museum exhibits' plaques. "Those words look long, and they're hard to sound out. And I'd need to know a lot of 'em."